The 33-year-old Wales international returned for a second spell with his boyhood club last summer after leaving Liverpool and played a crucial role in the promotion-winning campaign.

And Hudson, the club captain, believes the well-travelled winger has been a great example to the younger players in Malky Mackay's squad.

"Craig has been fantastic, he is a great leader," Hudson said. "I've said before when he was here the first time, his professionalism is what people look up to.

"The younger players look up to him and even the older players like myself do because he has achieved so much in his career.

"He will tell you himself it (playing a part in Cardiff's promotion to the Premier League) is something he didn't think would happen but he has done it with his boyhood club and he was nearly in tears."

Mackay has taken plenty of the plaudits since promotion was secured with a 0-0 draw against Charlton on Tuesday night and Hudson says their manager's preparation and attention to detail have helped make him such a success.

"He really goes down to the finer details day in day out and he is the ultimate professional," he said. "He demands that of us and that is what we try to give back.

"Seven days a week the consistency he demands is what we have given him I think."

Cardiff will be handed the Championship trophy after this weekend's home game with Bolton.

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t's wrong to be making a joke out of Bender's name at the expense of gay people. It's the kind of childish, uncivilised thing that Football365 would deride and ridicule if it was another media outlet saying. Why is there a need for jokes like this? Does it make your writers feel like men? F365 might suggest that I 'lighten up', but it is genuinely traumatic for people who have been oppressed all their lives to be the butt of jokes, and to be told...

ou can't blame De Gea for wanting to leave, he has enough to do in front of goal as it is as well as taking on the role of Man Utd's version of Derek Acorah in trying to contact and organise a defence that isn't there.